Twitter: Creating a balance
between reporting role and social life
by Jeff Kocur
The Zac Brown Band recently played to a full house at the Target Center in Minneapolis, and the Star Tribune’s critic gave a scathing review.
Reader comments attached to the story, though, exposed the writer’s dance between his snarky Twitter world and his professional responsibility to the readers.
A reader revealed the writer had tweeted several hours prior to the concert that “I had better start drinking now so I can get in the right mindset to give ZBB a fair review tonight.”
During the concert, he tweeted out things he did not like about the show. The covers, songs that went on too long, comments made by the band, & etc. littered the 20 plus tweets he sent out from the concert.
For me, this crossed a line I wanted to discuss with my kids as they engage more in Twitter as journalists.
Read MoreEthics in the eye of the storm
Keep your live coverage error-free
Queens, N.Y., Nov. 1, 2012 — FEMA Community Relations (CR) team members moved through Breezy Point and Rockaway, NY, after Hurricane Sandy. The CR members talked with disaster survivors about FEMA assistance and assessed the situation on the ground. Photo by Walt Jennings/FEMA
by Megan Fromm
When Hurricane Sandy hit the United States early last week, citizens turned to Twitter for a constant stream of information. The hashtag #Sandy provided hundreds of live perspectives each minute, including photos of the impending storm and subsequent devastation.
For those covering the story live, the storm spawned an entirely new lexicon of descriptors (“Frankenstorm” among the most widely-used) and created an ethical dilemma all-too-common in today’s instant media environment: How to sort the fact from the fiction?
Even today, a week out from the storm’s landfall, fake images from New York and New Jersey are still making the rounds on social and professional media outlets.
Would your students know which photos were real, and which were fake? Have your students take this quiz, and then use the following information to further consider the importance of verifying information as it is shared in real-time.
This Atlantic article is among the best sources we found for updating Sandy images as they are verified (or debunked) and is a great starting point for a larger discussion with your journalism students and scholastic journalists:
• Did your students retweet or repost any of these images? Which ones?
• How many followed the Hurricane Sandy hashtag? Did they make any attempts to verify the information they were receiving? Why/why not?
Looking for a few open forums
The upcoming 25th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hazelwood decision reminds us how important it is to have student media that are open forums for student expression either by school policy or by practice. Do they exist? We hope so…
Our goal: To showcase your schools and your policies to the nation on a Forum Map so we see that not all student media are subjected to the limitations and censorship of that misguided decision.
We, JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission (SPRC) and Kent State’s Center for Scholastic Journalism (CSJ), ask all student media that are open forums to complete the attached form and return it or send links to your policies to us.
• Here’s what you do:
Download the writeable form and return it to KentStateCSJ@gmail.com with requested policies and other materials.
Read MoreA checklist for ethical news values
by Marina Hendricks
As I wrote this, Hurricane Sandy bore down on the East Coast. A week remains until the election in which U.S. voters will choose their leader for the next four years. The Detroit Tigers played the San Francisco Giants for a World Series title. And I’m willing to bet there’s something interesting happening in your community.
News events, whether they are national or local in scope, offer excellent opportunities to help students assess their own journalistic practices and think about how to improve their work.
With the following list from “Media Ethics: Issues and Cases” by Philip Patterson and Lee Wilkins, students can evaluate coverage of a major news story. Each point on the checklist also should be considered in light of what students can apply to their own reporting, writing and editing.
Ethical News Values
• Accuracy – Are the facts correct? Has the reporter used the right words? What are some examples of right and wrong words? Is information in the proper context? What biases could the reporter have brought to the story?
• Confirmation – Does the story hold up inside and outside the newsroom? Are there holes?
• Tenacity – Has the reporter gone to extra effort on the story, or merely followed the pack? Is there depth to the story? If so, what are some examples from the story that point to depth?
• Dignity – Has the reporter treated the subject of the story with respect? Have the others involved with publication of the story – photographers, editors, videographers, designers, ad sales representatives – done so?
• Reciprocity – Do you think the reporter has taken a “do unto others” approach with respect to the subject of the story? Does the story pander to the lowest common denominator? What is important in this story from the audience’s perspective? Has the reporter addressed that?
• Sufficiency – Has the reporter had adequate resources to cover this story? Why or why not?
• Equity – Have all sources and subjects been treated in the same manner? Have all sides of the story been told? What are they?
• Community – How does the community benefit from this story? How does the media outlet benefit?
• Diversity – Are all parts of the audience represented in this story? If not, who is missing?
Regular study of news coverage by other journalists helps students learn what works, what doesn’t and what they themselves can do better – all in the safe context of analyzing someone else’s stories.
And there’s no need to wait for a huge storm, four-year election or big game, because news happens all the time.
About this series of posts
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Forum for student expression?
Apply for FAPFA recognition
by John Bowen
Applications are now available for this year’s First Amendment Press Freedom Award (FAPFA).
Funny how the cheerleaders get all the attention
by Mark Goodman
Funny how cheerleaders get all the attention.
It would have been difficult to miss the coverage this past week of the cheer squad at Kountze High School in Southeast Texas and their fight over free expression. From a high school of a little more than 400 students in a town of about 2,100 people, their story made national news.
The story in a nutshell, for those who did miss it: cheerleaders at Kountze emblazoned banners they displayed at football games with religious messages.
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